Posts Tagged ‘IP Traffic Management’

Network operators must identify faults in the network and resolve them as quickly as possible so asin order to avoid service downtime and to ensure customer satisfaction. In orderTo achieve this and to deliverconsistent and reliable network services, operators need access to accurate information from the network. Yet , most network operators have only an incomplete picture of what happens at the level of user equipment and devices. That is why it is important to be able to implement policies and processes to identify, diagnose and resolve any reductions in service quality or device malfunctions, and all before users are affected.

Current network monitoring solutions cannot access client devices or monitor the performance of individual applications in the subscriber domain. This inability to “see” beyond the boundaries of the network can result in a reduction in the subscriber’s service experience quality and can even be linked to customer churn. Maintaining satisfactory service quality levels through real-time monitoring of client devices is the only way to guarantee QoS and is the best way to increase revenue.

The ability to remotely identify and resolve root-causes of customer issues in the RAN or LAN

The means to measure actual link and per application performance and throughput, not network estimates across multiple access technologies (e.g. WiFi, 2G, 3G and LTE)

The ability to shorten customer support call duration, improving customer satisfaction and reducing costs and churn.

Network operators can rapidly deploy end-to-end service assurance solutions with the GoS 360° client which can be easily downloaded to smart devices. The GoS Manager is deployed in the core network allowing operations teams to access data vital to managing customer experience, reducing downtime and costs, and increasing levels of QoS.

Device-based PCEF is the only way in which network operators can accurately measure and manage the user service quality while complying with their overall policy control structure. Deploying GoS 360° is the perfect solution to network service assurance.

See our Network Service Assurance use case for more information and why not meet with us as Mobile World Congress? We will be presenting our solutions at MWC, stand 7G79 at the Ireland Pavillion.

Recent research has identified continued growth in the delivery of OTT video rentals – which is likely to overtake revenue from current subscription video on demand services in the near future.

While on the one hand, this is a clear demonstration of how OTT providers are monetising their services and building viable business models, on the other it points to an increasingly competitive future. In this competitive future, OTT players will be challenged by service providers with IPTV offers, broadcasters with VoD solutions and so on.

There will likely be new players that emerge and further enhancements to video formats. What’s more, viewers will increasingly demand a multi-channel and multi-device experience, switching between devices and expecting streaming delivery as well as cached or stored playback.

In such a world, user expectations of quality will increase – while users are discriminatory, quickly adopting new formats when they perceive an advantage, they also show less tolerance for an inconsistent experience across devices. A key question is what is the role of the network operator in this ecosystem? How can they increase their stake in the value chain?

It’s clear that all providers of video need to pay attention to service quality and this provides an opportunity for network operators to build and deliver value in video on demand and rental markets.

OTT players need to collaborate with network operators to ensure that delivery and playback experience is optimised. Network operators are best placed to ensure this but to do so requires end-to-end control of QoS. This can only be achieved by enabling policy control on user devices – particularly in the context of mobile networks where bandwidth delivery can be more challenging than in fixed.

To support the growth of video services in general to the mutual benefit of all service providers, the network operator has a key role to play. Extending policy directly to mobile devices is a critical step to ensuring that they remain relevant and can participate in a market poised for significant growth.

An interesting news item caught our attention recently. It seems AT&T is going to collaborate with IBM for the delivery of cloud services. AT&T’s network expertise will be complemented by IBM’s expertise in cloud services. In their analysis, Yankee Group suggests that this points to growing maturity in the cloud market.

We agree – but it also points to further necessary steps towards cloud service delivery. We have long viewed the role of the network operator as being potentially crucial in cloud service delivery – they are able to control the connection to the customer and can help deliver the quality of service and performance guarantees that will be demanded by enterprise cloud customers, but which the cloud service provider cannot offer.

But it needs to go further – network operators cannot currently guarantee QoS in the access domain. This is particularly problematic in mobile networks, where RAN performance is a hotly debated topic. What’s needed is the ability to deliver and guarantee QoS from the devices that are used – tablets, dongle enabled laptops, mobiles and so on. This can only be achieved by extending the policy management framework and deploying PCEF functionality on devices.

By taking these steps, network operators can ensure that they offer clear and unique value to cloud service providers, forging the way for fruitful partnerships in the future. We expect there to be many more such announcements – but we also expect the issue of end-to-end QoS to become even more important as a consequence.